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Monday 13 July 2026
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for what we mean by Science Fiction; here for the masthead; here for some Statistics; here for the Acknowledgments; here for the FAQ; here for advice on citations. Find entries via the search box above (more details here) or browse the menu categories in the grey bar at the top of this page.
Site updated on 13 July 2026
Sponsor of the day: David Cowhig
Croisières Sidérales
French film (1942). Industrie Cinématographique. Directed by André Zwoboda. Written by Pierre Bost and Pierre Guerlais. Cast includes Julien Carette, Jean Marchat and Madeleine Sologne. 90 minutes. Black and white. / The film opens with a scrolled text (in French): "Although the authors took great liberties with the scholar's numbers, particularly concerning the velocities and distances at which the laws of relativity could play, the ...
Supervillains
Supervillains (see Villains) were an inevitable consequence of the emergence of Superheroes in Comics and other media, since it quickly became apparent that the pioneering superhero Superman (see DC Comics) and his similarly powerful counterparts could as a rule encounter no meaningful opposition from ordinary criminals to create ...
Morris, Henry O
(1858-? ) US author of a Near Future tale of social discontent and revolution, Waiting for the Signal (1897), which climaxes in a benevolent secret society's successful overthrow of the plutocrats of America. [JC]
Capon, Paul
(1911-1969) UK author who also worked for many years in film and television production as an editor – working on three mid-1930s films for Maurice Elvey (1887-1967), including The Clairvoyant (1934) – and administrator, ending his career as head of the Film Department of Independent Television News (1963-1967). From 1942 he wrote fairly copiously in various genres, including detective and children's stories: 36 novels and one nonfiction book in all. He began writing sf ...
Palahniuk, Chuck
Working name of Charles Michael Palahniuk (1962- ), US author of transgressive fiction and Satire, some of whose works apply genre devices disruptive to the mundane modern world in which they are ostensibly set (see Equipoise). A graduate from the University of Oregon School of Journalism, Palahniuk found success with Fight Club: A Novel (1996), one of several works lampooning ...
Langford, David
(1953- ) UK author, critic, editor, publisher and sf fan, in the latter capacity recipient of 21 Hugo awards for fan writing – some of the best of his several hundred pieces are assembled as Let's Hear It for the Deaf Man (coll 1992 chap US; much exp vt The Silence of the Langford 1996; exp 2015 ebook) as Dave Langford, edited by Ben Yalow – plus five Best Fanzine Hugos ...